November update

What's life like for Anneke these days, and what is she up to?

Well, first the good:

She's very excited about the baby. She pats my stomach and says, "oh, baby, I love you," and we talk a lot about what we'll do with the baby when he comes. I anticipate a wee bit more ambivalence when he finally does come, but it's so fun to share this time with her.

Her imagination has gone through a growth spurt! Every moment is a new opportunity for pretend play: today she had a fork and a wooden spoon, and she told me she was playing violin. She crawls around the house pretending to be a kitty. She sings a lot, and often makes up songs, or puts new words to a familiar melody. Sometimes she goes off on verbal riffs which make no sense (to us) and remind me of scat singing or, if you're a total dork, of The Hybrid.

She just got her first haircut today! It took all of five minutes, and was a spur-of-the moment offer when I brought her in with me to my stylist to get a bang trim. I was so proud of Anneke--she sat very still through the whole thing. Actually, all morning she was a trouper coming along on errands, and she went a good 2-3 hours with no accidents. I gave her a big hug and kiss for being such a big girl when we got home.

She's still so sweet and snuggly, which I wouldn't expect to have suddenly changed, but these days I'm soaking it in more while I still have a lap and only one child to care for.

Then, there's the Bad:

Fears: as what I believe is just a corollary to her growing imagination, she gets scared much more easily. There was the battle of the Fluff, where for about two weeks she was terrified of...lint. The other day I innocently and excitedly said, "look, Anneke, there's a spider on the floor!" and she FREAKED out.

I really don't think these fears are "bad," but it's something to work through and sometimes hard for me to know when to just ride it out and when to push her a bit to get past it. I'm probably over-reacting since I work with kids with anxiety disorders--I need to remember these are most likely just part of her development, and the last thing I need to do is add to the drama by getting worked up over it myself.

and the Ugly:

Hand-foot-mouth disease! enough said. Plus, I caught a cold that bore too close a resemblance to the galloping consumption, and poor Dave came down with a stomach bug. All par for the course, but definitely ugly!

Bad hair day

Hmmm. Maybe she actually does have enough hair to start thinking about getting it cut.

Happy Halloween 2010!

Halloween gets to be more and more fun as the years go on. This year we started in Tigard, where Anneke got to trick-or-treat with cousin Claire and get lots of candy from Grandma. We also got to see new nephew/cousin, Connor, who is a little more than a month old. Wait, I think he's two months old! He is precious, at any rate.

Our first stop in our neighborhood was next door, home of Anneke's (hopefully) future babysitter (age 11) who seems to emit rays of golden light to the neighborhood children, who are mesmerized by her presence. Said golden child and her brother are old enough to have their own fun plans for Halloween, and their mom was home handing out candy and looking a little wistful. I took to heart her admonishment to enjoy this while it lasts.

And, what turns out to be the annual photo in front of the Bleck-o-lantern. Check out archives from 2008 & 2009. BTW, this was a flapper costume from the Gymboree outlet, but Anneke will tell you she was a beautiful princess.

Next year her little brother will be dressed as Meatwad. We're not missing out on that opportunity this time.

BOY!

Today we learned that our next child will be a boy. There was much rejoicing (at least from half of the expecting parents).

We also learned that if you set up an ultra sound machine to do sweep of its image finding beam across a space, you can have a computer translate the multiple 2D snapshots picked up by the ultrasound into a 3D surface map. Then simply apply a phong shading to create a view into the uterus, thereby creating a somewhat creepy first picture of your unborn child.

Some, would I expect, prefer to wait for the baby to be born to see the first picture of the child. For that reason I shall not embed an image here. For those of you who want a glimpse of he about whose name has yet to be argued I share this link, appropriately of him picking his nose.

--The proud dad to be

The old gang V 2.0

Oh boy oh boy! This weekend our dear friends, the McMillers, came up to visit us in the Bay Area and even stayed at our house. We had to get everyone together, just like back in the day. I'd say this get-together was a lot like parties from ten years ago:

Pre func: Eagerly waiting for our friends to show up

Midway through, wandering around the party in various stages of undress

Finally: everyone winds up in the hot tub.

Accessorized

Ahem, there was a mishap with our very, very fancy lens, and it's in the shop for repairs. It may be in ICU. So I thought I'd see how the old zoom lens does on our new-ish camera, and how I'm doing now that I'm getting the hang of shooting in manual mode. As you may be able to see, I'm too busy fiddling with the settings to master composition, but little missy was still being pretty cute. She's waaaay into dress-up these days. We forgot to bring a "beautiful skirt" to the beach with us last weekend, so she walked around with a pair of pajama pants tied around her head and a baby blanket around her waist. Guess I should post those photos next.

This is Anneke getting ready to see what Zoe does when she puts her new plastic ring on her tail.

Kroner house weekend

Last weekend we made a trip to Manzanita to stay at the Kroner House, so called because it's owned by...the Kroners. Dave's family has been renting this house since he was a kid. Dave and I have spent many weekends there, and it meant so much to finally bring Anneke along. It's cozy, not fancy, right on the beach--perfect. It was a challenging weekend for photography since the sunlight was BLINDING--probably brighter than it was all summer. I spent many a photo session grappling with harsh shadows and washed-out skies. I am not complaining about this inconvenience.

This was right before Dave and our daughter turned their backs to the ocean and I started fretfully wringing my hands.

Serendipity: we ran into one of Dave's cheese buddies at the bakery in town, and I dared ask if he knew of any good spots for finding chanterelles (this is kind of like asking someone where their favorite fishing hole is). He said that, as a matter of fact, he was heading there now! We promised not to reveal the secret spot and dragged our poor child on a long, steep hike. It was kind of a chanterelle death march. As it turns out, it was late in the season and many of the mushrooms we found were shriveled and not worth picking. But I really, really don't know a better way to spend time in a damp, loamy Pacific Northwest forest.

Lest we burn too many calories, there was apple oven pancake for breakfast.

Can you see the ladybug? Because Anneke can, and she first spotted it on a brisk beach walk, from probably three feet away. She has quite the radar for airplanes and lady bugs.

There was a beach fire and smores.

There was a beautiful sunset followed by a beautiful moonlit night.
Proof of life, since most of the time I was fiddling with the camera.